State of Flux
'' |image= |series= |production=111 |producer(s)= |story=Paul Robert Coyle |script=Chris Abbott |director=Robert Scheerer |imdbref=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708973 |guests=Martha Hackett as Seska, Josh Clark as Lt. Carey, Anthony De Longis as First Maje Culluh |previous_production=Prime Factors |next_production=Heroes and Demons |episode=VGR S01E11 |airdate=10 April 1995 |previous_release=Prime Factors |next_release=(VGR) Heroes and Demons (Overall) Distant Voices |story_date(s)=48658.2 (2371) |previous_story=Prime Factors |next_story=Distant Voices }} In the Seska =Summary= While routinely exploring a new planet for foodstuffs, a cloaked Kazon-Nistrim ship is detected in orbit. Therefore, the Away Team is recalled but Chakotay can't find Seska. He locates her in a nearby cave, hiding from two Kazon. She had been gathering mushrooms and wandered from the group. Chakotay is hurt in the exchange of fire but Seska gets them both beamed aboard safely. Rejecting Neelix's choice of foods and recipes, Seska and some other Maquis later break into the food reserves and steal the mushrooms she found to make mushroom soup. She privately brings a pot to the recuperating Chakotay, but the romantic mood between the former Maquis lovers is broken when Neelix reports the break-in. Chakotay angrily reprimands everyone involved, including himself as an accessory. Seska is stunned at his reaction and leaves, teasing him that her eye is now on Kim. Three days later, the U.S.S. Voyager gets a distress call from a Kazon warship. It turns out to be the one they just encountered, but with only one survivor amid devastation that was caused by Federation technology. Someone on Voyager had to have given them the technology. Against orders, Seska beams aboard the Kazon warship to retrieve the Federation equipment and is injured. In Sickbay, a routine blood test reveals racial factors of Cardassian origin, not Bajoran, but she explains a bone marrow transplant from a Cardassian woman caused the change during a childhood case of Orkett's Disease. Another Kazon ship responds to the distress call, and Janeway allows visitors for the ailing Kazon. But the Maje and his aide kill him and an angry Janeway sends them back, ignoring their claims to the damaged ship so it can be checked further for clues. Seska and Carey are now suspects in the espionage because the technology was sent from an Engineering station they both had access to. B'Elanna Torres retrieves the device from the wrecked vessel: a simple food replicator that rejected a Kazon interface with disastrous results. Chakotay and Tuvok set a trap to find the guilty Engineer — finally revealed to be Seska. She is indeed a cosmetically altered Cardassian who had rejected Janeway's nobility and instead sought allies among the powerful Kazon with the gift of technology. Before she can be arrested, though, Seska beams herself aboard the departing Kazon ship. Somewhat shaken by the turn of events, Chakotay ruefully wonders aloud about his old Maquis crew: if Tuvok spied for Starfleet and Seska was a Cardassian, was anyone aboard working for him? =Errors and Explanations= Internet Movie Database Trivia # While trying to explain how the Kazon acquired Federation technology, Tuvok ponders the possibility of another Federation ship being brought to the Delta Quadrant. Captain Janeway explains that, to her knowledge, no Federation ships had gone missing in the Badlands prior to Voyager. However, it is later revealed (in the two-parter "Equinox" and "Equinox, Part II") that the USS Equinox had been pulled into the Delta Quadrant just as Tuvok guesses in this episode. The Equinox was probably pulled into the Delta Quadrant form an area of space located well away from the Badlands. Character error # Lieutenant Cary brings back a bag of apples to eat. Neelix needs to inform him that they are poisonous. A simple tricorder scan, which one would think would be mandatory when gathering food on an alien world, should have revealed the fruit to be poisonous. Maybe the poison didn’t show up as such on a tricorder scan. Nit Central # Johnny Veitch on Saturday, April 24, 1999 - 10:25 am: In Caretaker Janeway says that they can`t give replicator technology to the Kazon because it`s impossible. According to this episode it`s possible, but it`s unthinkable. They also say it would violate the Prime Directive, but don`t the Kzon have warp? If you say no, they just have very powerful impulse engines, in Basics part II the Kazon captain says, concerning his engineering crew, "You`d think they`d never seen a warp core before!" Omer on Monday, April 26, 1999 - 10:37 am: Well, yeah, but there's Warp drive and THERE's warp drive! After all, Warp is like a 300 years old thing by this time. Plantman on Saturday, August 26, 2000 - 8:02 am: The Prime Directive also prohibits altering the balance of power in a region unless doing so will protect the Federation. Giving replicator technology to the Kazon would probably be more of a problem than a solution. # Spockania on Monday, March 12, 2001 - 5:06 pm: Methinks the good captain and first officer Chuckles take too relaxed an attitude here. They discover a hidden ship. Do they raise shields or beam the away team back? No. They use a beam of some kind to identify the ship as Kazon. Do they raise shields? No. Do they beam the away team back? Janeway does tell them to come back but doesn't notify the transporter room. Then does Chuckle call for a beamout? No, he assembles everyone in a single open location, counts noses, discusses what to do about the single missing person, then orders the others to beam back (again without notifying the transporter room to begin beam ups). During all this Voyager can't raise shields. Does this really seem like a wise precaution? Mark Swinton on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - 2:53 pm: I agree, this does seem like a strange way of going about things, particularly in light of what failing to raise the shields (in spite of regulations) did to Kirk and co in STII. However, there may be an explanation: having identified the Kazon ship hiding from them, Janeway and Chakotay probably guessed that it might be scanning them and decided that if they raised shields, it would show the Kazon they'd been spotted. And once spotted, the Kazon would come over and start shooting… (Not a very good explanation, but it occurred to me nonetheless!) # Spockania on Monday, March 12, 2001 - 5:19 pm: Nelix tells Captain Janeway that the Kazon Nistrim (sp?) are "one of the most violent sects" in the quadrant and they might be setting a trap. Why hasn't he told the Captain this before? They HAVE dealt with the Kazon before, after all. They were from other sects. # LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 3:25 pm: The crew deduce that someone gave the Kazon Federation technology because they detect a neosorium composite in the console on the Kazon ship, and Torres says she doesn’t know anyone other than the Federation who uses neosorium technology. Excuse me, but the crew is now in the Delta Quadrant. They’ve been here for just over 4 months, according to the stardates, and they’ve encountered exactly 8 alien races so far (The Caretaker, the Ocampa, the Talaxians, the Kazon, the Vidiians, the Baneans, the Vhnori and the Sikarans. They never met the race in Time and Again because the events of that episode never occured.) Of those 8 races, there is a serious question as to what kind of opportunity the Voyager crew had to examine a substantial amount of each race’s technology. It is unknown if they had the opportunity to examine the Caretaker’s array thoroughly enough to conclude that there was NO neosorium anywhere on it. Since everything the Ocampa had was given to them by the Caretaker, they cannot have anything he didn’t have. The only piece of Talaxian technology they’ve come into contact with is Neelix’s shuttle, and whether this is enough of a sample of the entire society’s technology is dubious. They did examine the Vidiian tricorder/transporter in Phage. It is unknown how extensive the crew’s exposure to Banean technology was in Ex Post Facto, Harry was the only one in Emanations to visit the Vhnori homeplanet, and it looked as if he was sequestered in their death facility the entire time, as his appearance, according to Dr. Neria, caused great controversy in their society. The crew did have the chance to examine Sikaran transporter technology in Prime Factors (as well as its weather prediction technology). So the only two races whose transporter technology that we know for a fact was examined by the crew are the Vidiians and Sikarans. So how does Torres know that the Kazon don’t use neosorium? The creators should’ve included a line by Janeway ordering an extensive scan of the Kazon ship to see if any of the Kazon’s other equipment use neosorium, in order to see if it’s commonly found there, but didn’t. The lack of Neosorium in Kazon ships could have been established during the battle for the Array in Caretaker. # LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, August 24, 2002 - 3:25 pm: Hal Schuster, author of The Trekker’s Guide to Voyager, pointed out that Doc told Torres in The Cloud that he was programmed to say, "Please state the nature of the medical emergency." But when he appears to corroborate the evidence against Seska at the end of the episode, he dispenses with this. Phillip Culley (Pculley) on Sunday, December 22, 2002 - 5:17 pm: Wasn't it mentioned in 'Eye of the Needle' that Janeway would get Torres to fix the 'Please state the nature' 'bootup' line? # constanze on Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 4:56 am: Why does Tuvok not offer to perform a mindmeld to find out if Carey is innocent or guilty? And if he suggested it, could Carey refuse it to protect his personal thoughts? That could be regarded as a violation of privacy! # So a simple replicator can fuse people in the vicinity with the walls of the ship if one (containment? shielding?) wall in the replicator is too thin, and it starts spewing neutro-somethings? Wow. That tech is even more dangerous than the holodeck. The Enterprise had a lot of luck this accident never happened on the ship (despite all the holodeck accidents and spatial phenomenon). Not really – the damage was caused by a lack of compatability between the replicator and the other systems on the Kazon ship. # Once again (for the umpteenth time) Star fleet officers show that what looks good should taste good - without bothering to scan if its compatible for humans - and if its a foreign food - Leeola - it must taste terrible. A raw potatoe doesn't taste good, either, but cooked, fried etc. it does. Coffee beans have to be extracted from the fruits and roasted, grinded, and extracted with hot water. Tea leaves have to ferment and be extracted with hot water. So why does Chakotay act if Leeola root is the most terrible tasting thing he has ever eaten, and he won't it eat even if there's no other food? (He probably never ate his veggies, either). Shouldn't Star Fleet academy have a lot of foreign foods so that the future Star Fleet officers can get rid of their inherent xenophobia and be as open-minded as possible? Andrew Gilbertson (Zarm_rkeeg) on Thursday, January 24, 2008 - 2:00 pm: Open-minded seems to be the catch-all solution to everything these days. But there are some time it just won't work. If a hostile terrorist wants to blow up everyone that doesn't believe in his religious, being more open-minded is not going to fix things between him and I. If a borg drone is advancing and insisting that resistance is futile while flexing his assmilation tubules, being more opne-minded isn't going to help. And above all... no matter how open-mided you may be... it doesn't make anything actually TASTE better! :-) And you can take that to the bank! ;-) (Besides, I know of a number of foods or drinks- Apple Cider Vinegar comes to mind- that simply COULD NOT be pallatable to me (I'd rather die of thirst than taste that stuff again) no matter how it's prepared!) Category:Episodes Category:Voyager